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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My cousin retired from teaching elementary school at age 50.  She now works a s nanny and gets $32 an hour cash plus lots of perks.  Families were fighting over her -- an ES teacher  with a masters in Elem Ed who can tutor, etc -- she has her pick of families. [/quote]

That is exactly the thing. There is more to life than money, and the best nannies don’t need to take a crappy split schedule with unreliable end times to get paid well. So if all you have to offer to make your job good is more money, you’re hardly guaranteed your pick of the field. As this board well knows, great nannies can make 10x what au pairs make, even when they do insist on a predetermined end time.

And good for them! I don’t think nannies should be more flexible. I think they’re right to insist parents not be late and let them off at a reasonable hour.  That’s just, unfortunately, not a job I myself can offer. I need extreme flexibility (the latest my AP has still been on shift was 2 am, and neither I nor AP had any warning that was going to happen) along with a horrible split schedule (one hour in the morning of kid wrangling and driving, then not coming back on duty until late afternoon/early evening). It’s a horrible lifestyle for a real adult trying to have a real life, date or have a romantic partner, see friends, etc. but perfectly tolerable to a young person on essentially an exchange year. [/quote]

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